Video: Microsoft 7 supports Dutch courts' mobile hearings
Date: Jul 01, 2010ICTRO, which provides IT support to the Dutch court system, is using communications technology to hold hearings remotely in the Netherlands.
The organisation is responsible for managing 12,000 PCs and 400 software applications for the court system. It is using Microsoft's Office Communicator and Live Meeting to develop remote hearings at Schiphol airport when people arrive without the correct documentation.
The project is part of a wider programme to use technology to allow court staff to work from home and on the move.
"It is quite a challenge to move from a paper-based system to an electronic system," says Paul van den Berg, programme manager.
ICTRO has migrated its 10-year-old Windows 2000 NT4 platform to Windows 7. The work required a complete rebuild of its back-office and front-office systems.
ICTRO is developing remote hearings at Amsterdam's airport. Previously, people who arrived without the correct document had to be sent to a court-house for a hearing, and may have been held overnight.
Video conferencing will allow court officials to hold instant hearings, and either clear a person for entry or send them back where they came from.
Other applications include holding remote hearings at football matches, where it can be necessary to process a large volume of people.
Van den Berg says that listening to staff was essential. "You need to get a share of their heart as far as what they need and how they want to work. If you try and force it on the workforce, it will not actually work," he says.
"In the end we did not have to persuade them. They were waiting. They are actually demanding the features and functions we are trying to build for them."
Sign up to Computer Weekly to download a PDF showing how Microsoft in the Netherlands is using technology to change the way its staff work. The package incluse a series of 6 white papers on creating a hybrid office and adopting new ways of working. Also included are more details of ICTRO's plans for the Dutch Court System and a case study showing how GKN Getronics, a large Dutch IT supplier, is using SharePoint and Office to allow its field-staff to collaborate when they are out on the road.
Click here to download Computer Weekly case study.
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